Real things everyday people got it to do, and how to try them yourself.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
He had the AI answer a Slack notification from a Datadog monitor. The AI checked the issue through Datadog MCP, found the right Slack group to ping, and sent a summary of what needed fixing.
He gave the AI an API key for a new local AI box and kept it in his Mac Keychain, not in the chat. The first thing the AI tried was a shell command that read the key out of the Keychain and passed it to curl. A hook blocked the command before it could run.
Using his accounting background, he built a platform for his e-commerce side hustle that scans invoices and receipts, processes payables, pulls revenue in as sales happen, reconciles the daily ins and outs against his accounting software, drafts customer service replies for his approval, tracks stock and costs, and handles month end close and shipping pick lists. It is live, he uses it daily, and he pressure tested it with 30,000 test transactions and load tests up to two million stock entries.
A man built a service so his own agents can send physical mail. He has used it to submit credit card disputes, credit bureau disputes and a gym cancellation, the letters people put off because they mean printing, envelopes and a post office trip.
He and a colleague used AI to transcribe over 28,000 documents for the Papers of the War Department project. They wrote up how they did it on the RRCHNM blog.
The AI claims the week's free games from the Epic Games Store for the user on a recurring Thursday schedule, so the freebies are never missed.
57B tokens burned on an AI jq rewrite and nothing usable came out.
Carlos Diaz, host of the Silicon Carne tech podcast, said on social media: 'I saved $2,300 this weekend, in just an hour and a half.' Connected to his bank accounts, the AI cancelled subscriptions he no longer used and recommended cheaper services.
He is a delivery driver who employs a worker. Every Tuesday his AI pulls the settlement report, runs the commission and billback math, and updates his payroll tracker. The job used to eat a chunk of his evening each week. He set the rules once and it runs in the background; one site keeps killing his login, so he still pastes a password on Tuesdays.
A mom of four school age kids started using AI last week and it already watches her school email, the grades site, Google Classroom and the ClassDojo app. It adds events and tests to the family calendar, sends a weekly report on missing assignments, reminded her about a field trip permission slip today, and drafts the email when a kid is out sick.
Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.